Stacie Overton Johnson and Adam Workman pick their favourite restaurants of the year, based on great decor and ambience as well as fabulous food. • Reviewed meals are paid for by The National and conducted incognito. Contact the restaurants as prices may have changed since our original reviews newslide Abu Dhabi Butcher & Still Very few of us will ever be cool enough to recreate the Al […]
The European Central Bank has said that Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s capital shortfall has risen to €8.8bn from €5bn, significantly increasing the price tag of the rescue of Italy’s third-largest lender by the government. In a statement released late on Monday, MPS also revealed that the ECB had warned that the bank’s liquidity had suffered a “rapid deterioration” over the past month, as it tried in […]
ACE Hardware, the world’s largest hardware retail cooperative, is to open at First Avenue in Dubai’s Motor City, becoming its main anchor retail tenant. The retailer said in a statement that it will operate on the ground floor across an area of almost 6,500 sq ft. ACE stores sell a wide variety of hardware products to maintain and fix homes and businesses. “The pace of demographic growth […]
2016 was another fantastic year in mobile technology where we find people using their smartphones as their primary source of information and social interaction. I’ve been blessed to now write here on ZDNet for more than a decade and look forward to an exciting 2017. This year-end post includes my ten most viewed posts from 2016, some “best of” titles for this year, answers to last year’s […]
The Sunday Times of Malta’s cartoonist Steve Bonello picked this effort as his favourite cartoon of the year. “The Panama Papers had not been published by that date (March 13), but it was what all of Malta was talking about, with the government pedalling hard to shift the focus on its three years of achievements,” Mr Bonello said in explaining his choice. It is indeed a remarkable […]
Physicists have conducted the first precision study of antihydrogen, the antimatter equivalent of hydrogen. (via WSJ)
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its “shameful” decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building. But with the clock ticking down on Barack Obama’s presidency, a possibly more amenable Republican Donald Trump waiting in the wings and a $38 billion U.S. […]
In 2016, we saw some phone manufacturers take big risks, trying to push the boundaries of what a smartphone should do, while other companies played it safe. LG and Lenovo each tried to create a modular ecosystem, while Google walked away from the idea altogether. Apple even got on board with water resistance, and then Google jumped into the smartphone war. Take your phone for a swim […]
By Stephen Kalin | EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces will resume their push against Islamic State inside Mosul in the coming days, a U.S. battlefield commander said, in a new phase of the two-month-old operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line in the city. The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security […]
Sweet Homes Group has revealed plans for its first hotel apartment project in Ajman, valued at AED141 million ($38.3 million). The developer said the serviced apartments project will be located along Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed road. Once completed, the development will feature 272 studio units and 72 one-bedroom apartments across an area of 11,394 square metres. Expected to be completed in 2019, the hotel apartment will also […]
MILAN The European Central Bank has told Monte dei Paschi it needs to plug a capital shortfall of 8.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion), higher than a previous 5 billion euro gap estimated by the bank, the lender said on Monday, confirming what sources told Reuters. Last Friday the Italian government approved a decree to bail out Monte dei Paschi (BMPS.MI) after Italy’s No. 3 lender failed to […]
PARIS The Tunisian suspect behind the truck attack that killed 12 people in a Berlin Christmas market last week appears to have passed through Lyon in France as he fled to Italy, a French judicial source said on Monday. Video surveillance footage showed Anis Amri at the Lyon-Part-Dieu train station on Thursday, and officials believe it was at the station that he bought a ticket for Chambery, […]
MANILA A typhoon weakened as it cut across the Philippines on Monday after bringing down trees and power lines, and authorities warned of flash floods and mudslides although casualties were few with police reporting only two deaths. Typhoon Nock-ten’s wind speed eased to 130 kph (80 mph) as it headed west toward the South China Sea, passing through provinces south of the capital Manila at a speed […]
Infrastructure works for two new berths at King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City will be finished in the next few weeks, significantly boosting capacity. Berths 5 and 6 are part of the port’s expansion plan, which aims to significantly uprate the port’s capacity, thus boosting its standing in the maritime industry, both regionally and internationally, a statement said. “With the two new berths, […]
Researchers have, for the first time, successfully demonstrated the basic operation of spintronics-based artificial intelligence. (via WSJ)
BOGOTA Errors by the pilot, airline and Bolivian regulators are to blame for a plane crash in Colombia that killed 71 people last month, including most of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team, Colombia aviation authorities said on Monday. The plane, operated by Bolivia-based charter company LaMia, crashed on a wooded hillside near Medellin because the pilot failed to refuel en route and did not report engine failures caused […]
By Humeyra Pamuk | ISTANBUL ISTANBUL Turkish authorities have arrested the cafeteria manager of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper for insulting the president after he said he would not serve tea to Tayyip Erdogan, one of the manager’s lawyers told Reuters on Monday. Senol Buran, who runs the cafeteria at the Istanbul office of Cumhuriyet, was taken into custody after police raided his home late on Saturday, lawyer […]
MOSCOW Russian state development bank VEB will post a loss of 130 billion roubles ($2.14 billion) this year, its chairman Sergei Gorkov said on Monday, less than an expected loss of 200 billion roubles. Speaking to reporters, Gorkov said VEB’s sale of American depository receipts, or ADRs, in Russian state gas company Gazprom GAZPI.UL this year had contributed 118 billion roubles to the overall loss. (Reporting by […]
DARPA is well known for creating robots and other cool things for the American military, and there is no end in sight. The company is preparing to put into production its LUKE bionic arm, a robotic device that has been in development for the last eight years. This interesting bionic limb will eventually make it to the commercial market, but DARPA wants to allow war veterans to […]
British pop singer and songwriter George Michael, who rose to fame in the 1980s as the frontman of Wham! before pursuing a successful solo career, has died “peacefully” at his home in England at the age of 53. Michael, born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, first made his name on the UK pop scene in the early 80s as one half of Wham!, with chart-topping hits such as “Wake […]
By Gram Slattery | SANTIAGO SANTIAGO Chile’s government set to work on Monday repairing roads and restoring electricity to southern regions affected by a major earthquake that struck on Christmas Day, frightening thousands but resulting in no fatalities or major damage. The quake, a magnitude 7.6 centered off Chiloe Island northwest of Patagonia, caused thousands in the tourism and salmon farming region to evacuate to higher ground […]
Emirates airline has announced that it will operate the first ever commercial Airbus A380 flight to Morocco and North Africa, when it takes the iconic double decker aircraft to Casablanca on March 26, 2017. The airline’s flagship aircraft will replace the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft currently used on the Dubai-Casablanca route, offering increased seat capacity across all three cabin classes and an enhanced premium product experience. The switch […]
BUENOS AIRES Argentina’s government has asked Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay to step down, cabinet chief Marcos Pena said on Monday, marking the first major departure in President Mauricio Macri’s Cabinet since he took office a year ago. As part of the move, the Finance Ministry will be split in two, with the treasury division led by economist Nicolas Dujovne and the finance division led by current finance […]
By Shwe Yee Saw Myint | YANGON YANGON A man has been found dead with stab wounds in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in what the government said on Monday was the second murder in under a week of a Rohingya who cooperated with authorities as they crack down on suspected insurgents. Coordinated attacks on October 9 killed nine police officers and sparked a military operation in northern Rakhine. […]
